Last Saturday, my yogacharya started another branch of our
yogashala and he asked me to speak at the inauguration about my experiences as
a yoga student.
I guess the expected thing on an occasion and a subject like
this would be to talk about how yoga cured my chronic, debilitating backache.
Or that my 20 year old migraine has disappeared or that my blood pressure, once
a screaming 100/200 is now a low and sweet 80/120. But while it is true that I
did come to yoga because I had a health issue, there were other more important
things to talk about. Today, I share some of them with you today …..
Mysore is no stranger to yogacharyas and yogashalas and many
would say that it is one of the cradles of yoga not just for India but also, as
is evident from this gathering, for the entire world. So, when I decided to
learn yoga, my choice of yogashalas was very wide indeed. And I chose Atma
Vikas Yoga Vignana Mandira because I found and read on the Internet a talk that
Yogacharya Venkatesh had given in which he said something that stood out. He
said that yoga is a way life. I can’t tell you why, but somehow it struck a
chord somewhere. I met Sir and started learning yoga. That was two and a half
years ago. 750 classes later - give or take a few - I’m still here. And still
learning. My friends and relatives are surprised. Still learning, they ask
incredulously? I don’t blame them. We live in “instant” times. We’ve become
used to wanting everything day before yesterday – or then at least in 10 easy
classes. Almost every day we are flooded with ads about yoga courses promising
to cure everything from asthma to depression in just 21 days. There’s
apparently even 5 minute yoga that you can do while tying your tie or brushing
your teeth or waiting for your flight to take off.
So, if it’s instant fixes that you are looking for, it’s not
a good idea to go to our yogacharya. His guiding principle is a few seconds, a
few centimeters a day. He’ll routinely tell you as he teaches you the simplest
asana that it’s going to take you 6 months to get this. At least. (He will also
tell you that the simplest asanas are the most difficult….) And anyway, what’s
the hurry, he asks, when you have not only this lifetime but so many more in
which to learn. Ask him if you’re doing the asanas correctly and he’ll say
don’t ever ask me that because there is no such thing as doing an asana
“correctly”. If anybody could, they’d be God. Ask him about pain, that favorite
subject of us yoga students. Tell him that this or the other part hurts and
most likely he’ll first laugh indulgently, then tell you very sweetly that it’s
going to hurt for a while. (6 months, maybe?!!). Besides, a little pain is
good, he’ll say, because learning to endure pain helps you build a strong will.
(I remember when he taught me Upavishta Kona Asana. I was splat and spread out
on the floor like a swatted mosquito and he asked, “What hurts?” My inner
thighs, I said and boy, were they hurting.. Good, he said, and walked off…. )
Go to any one of his yoga demonstrations and his constant litany will be, “This
asana is a very difficult one and with regular practice you will need at least
6 six years to master it…”
But I am still at it and God willing, I will be at for the
rest of my life.
Why? Especially since it’s been like erasing a book that
you’ve been writing for the last thirty odd years and then learning to write
all over again? Because, the lessons are about life and you realize that not
only is yoga a way of life, but also that there is no other way to live.
And what are these lessons?
First, that after a while, what asana you are doing becomes
irrelevant. Sure, certain asana are more important if you have a bad back and
others should be avoided if you are hypertensive and so on and so forth. And of
course, the body parts that you use for Badha Kona Asana are completely
different to Dhanurasana and so are many of the physical benefits. But, other
than that, everything else that you use are exactly the same, no matter what
the asana. Nothing to do with your body and they are also the very same things
that you use outside the yogashala – in life.
For example - patience. When you start doing yoga, there’s
the initial “honeymoon” period when you’re all fired up with enthusiasm. The
yoga mat is lovely and new, you’re suddenly sleeping better, eating better,
there’s a new spring in your step and everything seems wonderful, really. That
euphoria lasts as much as a modern day Hollywood marriage - anywhere from 1 to
about 4 months. Then you hit the speed breakers. You feel you’ve been
struggling for weeks but not getting anywhere. Even the health problem that you
came to solve is less, but still there. The yogacharya will talk about
“focusing on your breath” and relaxing into each asana. But that’s all double
Dutch because you’re too busy straining and pushing and “relaxed” is the last
thing that you’re feeling.
And this is the point where you make a choice. Either to
quit, telling yourself that this is really not your “thing” and maybe you
should try some other yogashala or switch to meditation or tai chi or maybe
even knitting ….
Or then, something called patience bit kicks in and you
choose to wait. And just turn up at the class everyday, without thinking how
long it will take to learn this or that asana or whether you’ll be yoga
competition material in a year or why your neighbour on the mat is progressing
faster than you etc., etc. And stop fighting with your asanas and yourself.
Instead, you just do the best you can for that day. And, most important of all,
be content with what you achieved in that session. And wait.
And the big deal about patience is that not can it stave off
an ulcer or a heart attack, it is also the flip side of contentment. Om
shanthi.
For me, that is more difficult than the most complicated
asana. It’s easy to fight, to compete, to want to win, to want more and more –
we’re taught this all our lives. As that Pepsi ad said – yeh dil mangey more….
Then, I am learning the real meaning of the word “effort”.
For most of us, effort means pushing, straining and sweating. And we do this
not just to have thinner thighs and yoga butts but also for flatter TV screens,
fatter pay packets, lower cholesterol, more percentage points on our children’s
mark sheets, more posh in our addresses, more happiness. We shove and push and
strain to try and get into the fastest moving lane or queque only to discover
to our horror that there is another one that’s moving even faster.
But I have come to a teacher who believes in …..yup, just a
few seconds, a few centimeters further a day. Remember that story about the
tortoise and the hare? I think the tortoise in that story must have been my
yogacharya’s student. Because, when the tortoise stood with the hare at the
starting point, the finishing line must have seemed at least a few lifetimes
away. (I’ve often felt like that while doing an asana!) But he just shut his
eyes, ignored the taunting chatter inside his head – (“Look, everyone around
you has learnt padmasana and you can’t even manage Ardha of it!”) - and slowly
tottered down those first few millimeters. And ignoring the equally taunting
hare, who, was halfway down the racetrack and resting. Then he went a few more
millimeters. Paused for a few breaths, nice and easy. And then, a few more.
Till….
We all know how that story ends. But, that’s not important.
Because the tortoise didn’t know that he was going to win. In fact, when he
started, winning must have seemed as possible as growing a pair of wings and
flying off to Florida. But, all the same, he gave it a shot and didn’t give up.
Tackling it a millimeter at a time…
So, you could say that I am learning to be a tortoise.
And like the tortoise, I am learning that there’s very
little that is not possible if you put your mind to it. We preset our limits, mostly
without knowing if they are really our limits and so much of life gets blocked
out before we have even tried it. A year ago, if somebody told me that I could
do Sarvangasana, I’d have laughed. Today I can. It took me 2 years of almost
daily practice to be able to do padmasana. An imperfect, barely padmasana, but
a padmasana all the same. Two of my neighbours-on-the-yoga-mat can do pindasana
in sarvangasana. In case you don’t know what that is, first you do sarvangasa
and then, while still upside down, you wrap your legs into a padmasana and like
a well-oiled hinge, fold your body from your hips towards your head so that
your folded legs rest on your forehead. According to BKS Iyengar, in his “Light of Yoga”, difficulty rating of 5.
According to me, at least 455. In my pre-tortoise days, I’d have thought – I
will never ever be able to do that. Today, I think - maybe, someday…..
So I am learning to allow the possibility of the impossible.
It’s both frightening and fun.
I also learnt the folly and arrogance of taking anything for
granted. Just because my back when beautifully flat and stretched out in
paschimottasana today does not mean it will so be tomorrow. Ditto outside the
yogashala. So, I’m learning to what I’ve heard my yogacharya droning everyday
to us while we are in shavasana – to be not in the past, not the future, but
now. In this breath, in this moment, this is where all it all is.
Concentration. Contentment. Or, as that Hindi film song says – kal kya hoga,
kis ko pata. Abhi zindagi ka le lo mazaa.
Finally,
I learnt that life is about small triumphs. No big leaps, no saving the world
or the Amazon rainforest. Just conquering one more centimeter, a few more
seconds. Like my anger fuse – it’s a little longer. Not much, just a few
centimeters. Will there come a day when it will be as long as Lord Hanuman’s
tail was in Ravana’s palace – endless and nothing will set me alight? Who
knows? Maybe. (And if not in this lifetime, then maybe the next!)
Or
then, maybe not.
These are lessons for life, about life. To be like the
tortoise. And nothing teaches them better than yoga…..
******
